Rotherham, England: When political correctness becomes criminal

In nearly all cases highlighted in the report, there was a single overarching conclusion: The system had failed these children.

This is the dark history that Rotherham, a town in northern England of just over 250,000 people, must now contend with.

The report found that despite reports of a serious issue with child exploitation, senior managers in the town downplayed the issue.

When the victims reported similar descriptors of their abusers — “Asian” men — council officials feared being labeled as “racist” for highlighting the problem.

According to the report, most perpetrators were of Pakistani origin. Little effort was made to work with the Pakistani community to address the problem.

“Several staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist; others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so,” the report said.

While many of the victims were white British children, there were also Pakistani girls who were victimized.

Young white children were not the only victims. The failure to engage with the Pakistani community put young Pakistani girls at risk as well, the report found.

Girls of Pakistani heritage were sometimes lured outside the gates of their school by taxi drivers and older men who might sexually abuse them and traffic them to other men.

Pakistani women’s groups described the fear of reporting predators who would prey on young girls and pass their names on to other men, according to the report.

The voices of these women were not heard until it was too late.

“There was too much reliance by agencies on traditional community leaders such as elected members and imams as being the primary conduit of communication with the Pakistani-heritage community,” the report found.

Where were these children’s parents? Why didn’t they go outside the town’s authority over this abuse? 1,400 is a huge number of children. Are people really that afraid of reporting abuse from non-British people?

This story is one of the most tragic I have ever read. Wrong is wrong. I don’t care what the race or ethnicity of the perpetrator. The perpetrators need to go to jail. Those who failed the children need to step down immediately. Perhaps they need to face prosecution. The locality must compensate these victims even if it breaks the Bank of England.

These facts are perfect example of political correctness run amuck. There is a huge difference between speaking politely in public and allowing members of a minority community to commit violent, criminal acts on the children of a region. Shame shame shame on Rotherham.

Every once in a while we do see eye to eye, Steve. But we do usually manage to find common ground on most issues, even if it is only an inch or two of common ground. (Just one of those postage stamp size lots of common ground.)

I sure hope this one doesn’t happen. Let’s face it, especially in the United States, the lines aren’t as clearly drawn as they are in the UK. I have a dear friend who is absolutely venomous about people who aren’t white Brits. I secretly have thought for years that Britain’s immigration problems rest on the fact that the sun never set on the British Empire. I just never said it.

After reading this story, I won’t be as harsh on Roger for his attitudes if this is the end result of the UK’s political correctness.

We’ve already got honor killings and FGM in the US. (Oddly, the only people in the US that seem to be saying much against FGM are the ones that some claim are waging a ‘war on women’.)

Closer to home, we’ve and plenty of local ‘massage parlors’ where the women (or should I say girls, since they’re usually under 18) don’t get treated much better these women in England

But hey, at least we aren’t trying to impose our evil Western values on these immigrants. Sorry, I mean migrants, or whatever the new PC buzzword is. I mean look at how the British Empire extinguished the charming local practice of sati in India. Cultural imperialism at its worst.

Don’t want to import the worst practices and values from the third world? Maybe we should demand immigrants conform to the culture of their new home, instead of trying to conforming our culture to the place they were so desperate to leave.

@Moon-howler
It should sound familiar.
That’s what the Democrats want to do by giving illegal aliens amnesty.

As for the women….nothing the GOP will EVER do will be enough to satisfy liberal women.
They are bombarded by daily false messages from the media that the GOP is the enemy. So far, the GOP has lost that war. There are not enough conservative media outlets to counter that propaganda.

Let’s have that discussion. I think it is a good one Cargo. What you don’t understand is that the GOP has nothing to offer moderate women or liberal women.

I could tell you a few things to start them in the right direction: stop trying to take away abortion rights, stop threatening reproductive rights in general, stop the subliminal message that women somehow are girls to be patronized. Now, do all Republicans do that? No. I have some good repub. friends that don’t think that way. However, they need to severely tromp those old goats who do think that way.

There’s a place to start.

A lot of people who know me would never describe me as a liberal women. However, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to vote GOP.

Secondly, women will control their own reproduction and woe be unto the person who tries to stop them. The very same people who oppose abortion for any reason at any term of gestation mostly are the people who want to ban birth control and stop funding for contraception.

Apparently its a control thing.

Just a PS–most women regardless of how liberal do not endorse abortion without some limitations.

It’s not just we “old goats” who are serving as the champions of the most innocent and helpless of us all. There are many, many women allied with us and in the forefront of the battle. You just won’t admit it.

Not a control thing at all. Just a fight to preserve life. The effort to connect the fight against abortion with contraception is a liberal strawman and a political falsehood. Access to contraceptives is not endangered for those who want them. But 50 million lives have been taken in the abortion clinics since 1973 — far, far too many of them in situations where the children in the womb are made to pay the ultimate price for the sins of the parents because the former are considered to be an “inconvenience.” Shame on us all for that.

Recent reports have stated that the incidence of teenage pregnancies has gone down of late, primarily because of contraception AND abstinence. Good. Some progress against the killing in the womb.

Let me know when liberals decide that personal inconvenience is not a valid reason for ending a life in utero.

Old goat? Must I call you Mr. Old Goat? I won’t admit what? I never said there weren’t women involved in the anti abortion crusade. DOH.

You are totally overlooking the number of abortions performed before Roe v Wade. That’s the dirty little secret that many of you all won’t talk about. You act like Roe v Wade invented abortion.

I suggest that if you really want to be effective in your efforts start up some day care for those who “chose life.” Help offset the cost of raising a child. Obviously social stigma is no longer the problem in most cases, so what is it? $$$$$$$ You seem to want to reduce having food, a roof over one’s head and the ability to earn a living into ” convenience.” That is shallow and emotional.

Abstinence? Where? I am not sure that is true. What I have been reading is far more chilling. Let’s just say that teen sex practices now include forms of stimulation that don’t end up with pregnancies. I wish it were abstinence. But that is a topic for another blog, not this one. EWWWWW

Just for the record, children aren’t in the womb. Zygotes, embryos, fetuses are all womb inhabitants.

For the record, you have absolutely no clue how I feel personally about abortion.

For the record again, the really amazing part of your “speech” is where you say that women “allied with us.” I am assuming by “us” you mean men? The men’s fight against abortion is really pretty simple and can only be done by men: keep your zipper up. No one will get pregnant.

And note that while they ignored child rape on a scale of hundreds or thousands, there was one sin they couldn’t ignore: “The woman who presided over the last five years of failure as the boss of children’s services at Rotherham Council is the same executive who removed three children from their foster parents because they were Ukip voters.”

I have been pregnant twice. At 8 weeks gestation, I was carrying embryos. Neither one of them were “babies” at that point. They became babies. Then toddlers, then children, then teenagers, then adults.

I don’t have a problem with human but that covers a lot of turf.

Cargo, you obviously want to turn this discussion into something emotional rather than factual. The bottom line is, abortion is legal. whether you like it or not, some women chose to abort if they become pregnant. If you continue to want to deny women the right to their own reproduction, then you will always belong to a party that is rapidly becoming fringe. Remember, no one is saying anyone MUST have an abortion. It’s really not your right to make that decision for someone else. Most antiabortion rhetoric is emotional or religious.

When you don’t have control over your own reproduction, you really aren’t empowered. You seem to want the government out of YOUR business but you are perfectly willing to have the government in MY business and the business of my daughter and granddaughters. Funny thing about that….that’s why its so important to defend reproductive rights.

If the unborn is not a human regardless of its stage of development, there is no need to justify abortion. However, if the unborn is human then it is not a matter of individual control or freedom and no justification is adequate or acceptable.

Unlike gun control which is not about guns but really is about control, abortion is about humans and the most basic of human morality.

Ed, I don’t disagree at all but it really should be a prepared lesson and teachers should keep their own opinions out of the discussion. If those steps are followed then it is a wonderful way to teach a myriad of necessary skills.

The Guttmacher Institute, formed as a division of Planned Parenthood of America, reported 1.05 million abortions in the US in 2012; 4.8% of abortions in the US occurred from week 16 of pregnancy to week 32. The National Right to Life Committee reported on their 2/2014 fact sheet (http://www.nrlc.org/uploads/factsheets/FS01AbortionintheUS.pdf ) that the total number of US abortions since 1973 (RVW) through 2013 was 56.5 million abortions. The number of abortions executed by Planned Parenthood shown in their annual report lists 329,445 abortions in 2010, 333,924 in 2011 and 327,166 in 2012. That, by any measure, is a lot of blood to be on anyone’s hands, whether or not you beleive in God.

Moon-howler :
I think gun control is about stopping deaths and maiming because of guns. You were kidding, weren’t you?

A Harvard Study titled “Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide?” looks at figures for “intentional deaths” and shows that more gun control does not lead to lower death rates or violent crime rates. In fact, the study finds that more gun laws may increase death rates.
The authors of the study conclude that the burden of proof rests on those who claim more guns equal more death and violent crime; such proponents should “at the very least [be able] to show a large number of nations with more guns have more death and that nations that impose stringent gun controls have achieved substantial reductions in criminal violence (or suicide).” But after intense study the authors concluded “those correlations are not observed when a large number of nations are compared around the world.”

In other words, there is no empirical data to suggest that gun control reduces either deaths or crime. One only has to look to our own “progressive “cities to confirm this. It is a debate about political control and crazy political slogans.

@Cargosquid
Gun control isn’t just about criminal actions. It is also about careless actions.
I disagree that it doesn’t control criminal actions. Let’s take one example. are kids allowed to buy guns? Are they allowed to order guns out of magazines?

You are aware that many perfectly decent people have learned to keep their mouth shut and to mind their own business. Thugs kill and kill family members. This doesn’t just happen in Muslim communities.

Perhaps that YOU are taking about…I am talking about what I am talking about. I think anything that regulates who has a gun is gun control.

I think the UK has a problem of not wanting to offend anyone and the penalties are stiff. People falling into that category are often called WOGs which is an ethnic slur but you had better not use it at work or the PC police (not what they call them) will get you.

Indians, southern Asians, middle easterners, plus Islanders all are there and on the protected list, according to my Brit friend. I expect gypsies aren’t highly regarded either.